Becker Group

Cormac Woods spent the last week at the beach, looking out at the rolling waves and thinking of ways to make your Christmas shopping experience more fulfilling. Woods is president and owner of The Becker Group, a Baltimore-based company that designs custom displays - mostly holiday-themed - for businesses across the country. The native of Ireland first sought work at Becker out of college after winning a lottery to come to the United States, hoping only for a job that gave him ample opportunity for time off to see the country.

Cormac Woods spent the last week at the beach, looking out at the rolling waves and thinking of ways to make your Christmas shopping experience more fulfilling. Woods is president and owner of The Becker Group, a Baltimore-based company that designs custom displays - mostly holiday-themed - for businesses across the country. The native of Ireland first sought work at Becker out of college after winning a lottery to come to the United States, hoping only for a job that gave him ample opportunity for time off to see the country.

The Becker Group, the Baltimore company best known for its mall Christmas displays, has been bought for $24 million by a Phoenix firm that designs exhibit and trade show displays. Company founder Gordon Becker and other executives said the sale to Viad Corp. would help the 53-year-old company continue a strategy it started several years ago to expand the business beyond mall decorating to casinos and other venues. The deal also will enable the company to own displays rather than just manage them, and further its international business, said Glenn Tilley, Becker's president and chief executive officer.

The Becker Group, the Baltimore company best known for its mall Christmas displays, has been bought for $24 million by a Phoenix firm that designs exhibit and trade show displays. Company founder Gordon Becker and other executives said the sale to Viad Corp. would help the 53-year-old company continue a strategy it started several years ago to expand the business beyond mall decorating to casinos and other venues. The deal also will enable the company to own displays rather than just manage them, and further its international business, said Glenn Tilley, Becker's president and chief executive officer.

As chief executive officer, Gordon Becker sets an example for his staff by wearing Santa Claus cuff links and, at times, a red, fur-trimmed hat to match. His company markets itself with the tag line "Making reindeer fly." Major departments are Christmas and Easter, and a corporate conference room is trimmed in holly, wreaths and bows most months.For Baltimore-based Becker Group, founded more than four decades ago, Christmas is no holiday. It's year-round work, with more than $22 million in sales and hundreds of clients as far-flung as Brazil, Paris and Tokyo.

"It's an expensive ordeal to hire someone who doesn't wor out," observes Joe Babinski of the Baltimore-based Becker Group.That's why the Becker Group, which does seasonal shopping center decoration at malls throughout the country, is turning increasingly to a personality test, the Activity Vector Analysis, in its hiring."We're very pleased with the AVA," says Mr. Babinski, Becker's vice president and chief operating officer. The AVA goes beyond the skills and experience needed for ajob, to determine whether an applicant has the right personality fit for the position -- eliminating costly hiring errors, he explains.

THE GERMANS invented Christmas trees. The Dutch invented Santa Claus. The Greeks invented shopping.The Americans packaged them into an annual orgy of decorated, climate-controlled spending.And the Becker Group is re-exporting them, brokering tinsel, trappings and "Santa reception modules" to malls of the world.Maryland's exports hit a record high last year. The Becker Group helped.The Baltimore company calls itself the biggest holiday decorator of shopping centers and casinos on the planet.

Kenneth C. Hobart, former creative director of the Baltimore-based Becker Group and co-founder of a now-defunct greeting card company, died of AIDS Tuesday at his North Baltimore home. He was 48. Until leaving the Becker Group two years ago because of failing health, Mr. Hobart was creative director of the company that is one of the world's largest designers of holiday decor for shopping malls, casinos, corporate headquarters and cruise ships. "Kenny was like a million-watt light bulb," said Gordon Becker, CEO and founder of the 40-year- old design firm.

Becker Group opens area Christmas storesThe Becker Group, a Baltimore-based company that has decked the malls of America for nearly 40 Christmases, has finally succumbed to the selling bug.Last week, the company launched its new retail division by opening S. Claus Collection stores at Owings Mills Town Center and Towson Town Center. The stores will carry an assortment of Christmas merchandise, as well as gift items.The seasonal stores, which will be open from late October through Dec. 31, are a pilot project for The Becker Group, said Marsha Becker, director of S. Claus Collection and wife of company President Gordon Becker.

GAITHERSBURG - The people who brought Christmas to Lakeforest Mall this year, and to Annapolis Mall, Frederick Mall and Marley Station in years past, started thinking about Santa more than a year and a half ago, in the summer of 2001. There were no teddy bears in bow ties and tweed jackets then. No flying machines suspended from the skylights. No 30-foot-tall tree with an interactive map of the world in its trunk and a spinning globe in its boughs in the center court, either. All there was then was all there ever is when The Becker Group of Baltimore begins to design holiday decorations for a shopping mall: the idea itself.

Kenneth C. Hobart, former creative director of the Baltimore-based Becker Group and co-founder of a now-defunct greeting card company, died of AIDS Tuesday at his North Baltimore home. He was 48. Until leaving the Becker Group two years ago because of failing health, Mr. Hobart was creative director of the company that is one of the world's largest designers of holiday decor for shopping malls, casinos, corporate headquarters and cruise ships. "Kenny was like a million-watt light bulb," said Gordon Becker, CEO and founder of the 40-year- old design firm.

As chief executive officer, Gordon Becker sets an example for his staff by wearing Santa Claus cuff links and, at times, a red, fur-trimmed hat to match. His company markets itself with the tag line "Making reindeer fly." Major departments are Christmas and Easter, and a corporate conference room is trimmed in holly, wreaths and bows most months.For Baltimore-based Becker Group, founded more than four decades ago, Christmas is no holiday. It's year-round work, with more than $22 million in sales and hundreds of clients as far-flung as Brazil, Paris and Tokyo.

New positionsRomita, Concordia join Becker GroupThe Becker Group has named Victor Romita chief operating officer and executive vice president. The Baltimore-based company, which designs and produces holiday decorations for business and commercial centers worldwide, also named Michael Concordia vice president of sales.Romita, a 13-year veteran of IBM Corp., most recently was area sales executive in charge of the southern region of IBM Global Services. Concordia was vice president of Godiva Chocolatier, a division of Campbell Soup Co. Before that, he was with Procter & Gamble Co.Haas names Wetzler senior vice presidentHaas Tailoring Co. appointed Phil Wetzler as senior vice president.

A black sexton who was arrested on suspicion of loitering Thursday evening outside the downtown church where he works said yesterday that he was improperly arrested and that one of the two white police officers who made the arrest yelled a racial epithet at him and threatened to beat him.Glen Owens, 35, who does custodial work at Emmanuel Episcopal Church at North Charles and Read streets, was released on his own recognizance from the state Central Booking...

THE GERMANS invented Christmas trees. The Dutch invented Santa Claus. The Greeks invented shopping.The Americans packaged them into an annual orgy of decorated, climate-controlled spending.And the Becker Group is re-exporting them, brokering tinsel, trappings and "Santa reception modules" to malls of the world.Maryland's exports hit a record high last year. The Becker Group helped.The Baltimore company calls itself the biggest holiday decorator of shopping centers and casinos on the planet.

Ever wonder how Santa would look in pink satin? Or wish your carpet smelled like Christmas? Perhaps you'd simply like to spruce up your tree with red bandanna garland?The S. Claus Collection can help. The new retail division of the Becker Group, a Baltimore-based holiday display company, has enough ornaments, stockings, lights, garlands, wreaths, trees and gifts to make even Santa's elves feel envious.The stores, located in Towson Town Center and Owings Mills mall, boast more than 50,000 ornaments, ranging from the traditional to the truly unusual.

GAITHERSBURG - The people who brought Christmas to Lakeforest Mall this year, and to Annapolis Mall, Frederick Mall and Marley Station in years past, started thinking about Santa more than a year and a half ago, in the summer of 2001. There were no teddy bears in bow ties and tweed jackets then. No flying machines suspended from the skylights. No 30-foot-tall tree with an interactive map of the world in its trunk and a spinning globe in its boughs in the center court, either. All there was then was all there ever is when The Becker Group of Baltimore begins to design holiday decorations for a shopping mall: the idea itself.

One thing about Christmas: It absolutely can't be beat for beauty and variety of decorations. Perhaps no place is this clearer than at Baltimore's "fantasy fairyland," the annual Festival of Trees.The weeklong event, now in its fourth year, features fabulously decorated trees and wreaths, tableaux of Christmas traditions around the world, a bakery and sweet shop, a "village" of gingerbread houses, a "Merry Marketplace," with holiday carts brimming with crafts and other holiday gifts, and a 40-foot merry-go-round.